


Excerpt from the Book of Raguel

by TeaRoses



Category: Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A told story is a living thing, even for the worst storyteller, but a written one only sits there, ink on a page, waiting for people to puzzle it out.  But in the end I put some of my life on paper."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excerpt from the Book of Raguel

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: Gehayi in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge.
> 
> Thank you very much to Cadet Dru and eerian_sadow for beta work. Any mistakes are my own.

Writing a story is different from telling it out loud. When you tell a story you can change it for your audience: use it to upset them, to console them, to hold up a mirror so they can see themselves. And then they can tell it, give it their own meaning and sell it for silver. A written story, that's another matter entirely. It's written one way, and you can't change it. A told story is a living thing, even for the worst storyteller, but a written one only sits there, ink on a page, waiting for people to puzzle it out.

But in the end I put some of my life on paper. Am I defending myself, or only exposing my sins? I'm not sure I know anymore. But perhaps those who say I fell will read these words and know the truth, for all stories have truth, even the written ones.

I will tell you first about Lucifer, the little that I can tell. I don't know you -- that's the other problem with a written story. I can't see your face. But people know the name of the Light-bringer and want to know how he fell. And he did fall, or at least he went into the darkness and never came out. I in my cell knew of this, though I was not called on for vengeance on Lucifer.

All I can say is that after he saw the angel Saraquael die for love, he began listening to the voices in the darkness in earnest. I tried to tell him once that the Name had made the darkness as well as the light, but by then he paid no heed to me. The voices told him to question the Name, but they only built on what had started within him when he discovered that love brings death and death, destruction. There are those who say they tempted him with power or other, baser things, but I think it was love that tempted him: the chance to love even that which is wrong and undeserving.

He took other angels with him, and eventually I heard they plotted to overthrow the Name, if such a thing can even be said. That they would fight the battalion of angels Lucifer himself used to command, back in the Silver City. But if those days ever came I never saw them, or perhaps I should say that I haven't seen them yet.

I continued fulfilling my function as the Vengeance of the Name. I didn't question; I still barely knew what questioning meant. But then came the time the universe was almost destroyed.

It was nearly finished. The countless objects, feelings, and concepts were present inside it, and the model, for lack of a better word, sat in the city waiting. Then one morning they called for me. I reported to Zephkiel, and I was still the only one who knew His true identity.

"This is a very serious case," He said to me. "Someone has tried to destroy the universe."

"Why would anyone do that, Lord?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "When you find them, then you will know."

I didn't ask him why He was sending me, when He surely knew everything that had ever been. If He still needed me, then I would serve Him.

The model of the universe, though it was closer to being the universe itself than to being any kind of diagram, was broken. Teams of angels were fluttering around it, trying to replace everything that had been lost. "My red!" one cried out. "My sadness!" another.

When I asked who was in charge, I was directed not to Phanuel but to an angel named Karovel. He sat by the fallen stars, shaking his head. I approached him.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"Someone has tried to destroy the universe. Just as we were creating the last, most important part."

"What was that?"

"Man," he answered. "A special project of the Name Himself."

"Man?" I asked.

"That is the reason for the universe's existence. Did you think angels were going to populate it?"

I hadn't actually thought about that one way or the other. "So you were creating man?"

"Not just me personally. It took many of us, and the final breath of the soul was to come only from the Lord. All the concepts that had been created before were for man's benefit."

"What does a man look like?" I asked him, curious.

"A little like an angel, but with no wings. And not half as beautiful."

"How could anyone destroy the universe? I mean, how is such a thing possible?"

"Destruction was someone else's department," Karovel said. "I do not know how it works. But it was horrible. Everything was falling, breaking: 'drink' and 'have' and 'not' and 'shame'. But all is not lost! The universe will be put back together, only a little behind schedule."

"And who was creating destruction?" I knew well that destruction had already existed, but I asked him anyway.

He gestured toward an angel with long, dark hair. "Avadel," he said.

I went to him. "So you were working on destruction?" I asked him, without introduction.

Avadel nodded. "The worst destruction will come with the pronunciation of the True Name. I believe that is what happened to the universe. Someone said It, and then everything fell apart."

"And why did we need to create something as dangerous as destruction?" I asked.

"Does nothing ever need to be destroyed?" he asked, and I wondered if he knew who I was. "Did Karovel tell you of man?" he asked. "Men and women -- there will be two kinds -- and they will not be like the angels. They will have their own will, to create or destroy."

"Why two kinds?" I asked.

"To make more of themselves."

To create, then. I nodded. Then I told both Karovel and Avadel to meet me in the room of Zephkiel, where the Name still sat awaiting justice. When we were gathered together, I asked one question.

"Why do you hate man?"

Avadel looked surprised. "I do not hate man."

"Karovel, why do you hate man?" I walked in front of him, the eyes of the Lord following me. "Because man is less beautiful than we are?"

Karovel hung his head. "Beauty is not important. But man is filled with sin. He will go against the will of the Lord."

"And that is why you destroyed the universe?"

He turned his face toward me. "Don't you understand? I had to destroy it, to keep perfection."

"The Silver City was already imperfect," I said. If it were not so, I would not have needed to exist. "Did not Lucifer disappear?"

"That is still man's fault. If it were not for man, we would not have needed the darkness at all. They are the ones who were supposed to choose between darkness and light."

"Man is the reason we are making the universe, Karovel," said the One they called Zephkiel from behind me.

"I know, but we will never do the terrible things man will do. Better to not have a universe at all, and we can dwell in perfection and beauty here," protested Karovel.

"I doubt that angels can do any better than men," I said, though I wasn't really certain.

Now that he had confessed, I expected my purpose to overtake me again, to force me to destroy him, but there was something else in my mind instead.

"Your punishment is exile," I said. "Leave this city at once, and never come back."

"But I cannot live without--"

"This is the will of the Name," I said.

Karovel flew, into the darkness or the unfinished universe, wherever would take him now. I dismissed Avadel and turned to Zephkiel.

"He sinned only from loving You," I said. "And You gave him the worst punishment of all, to be cut off from You."

"Do you know the concept of forgiveness?" the Name asked. "Perhaps, someday, Karovel will be forgiven."

Forgive him now, Lord, I thought to myself. But it is not for me to give orders to our Creator, so I left the room. I did not go back to my silver cell, however. I, Raguel, was the next one to walk in the darkness. I told myself I was looking for Karovel, but really I was looking for answers. Yet at first the voices only gave me more questions.

"Did you have to destroy Saraquael?" they asked me.

"It was my function," I told them.

"Did you have to?" they asked again, as if I had not answered them. "And did you have to exile Karovel?"

"He tried to destroy the universe," I replied.

"Out of love," they told me, and I still listened. "Was not Lucifer right?"

"The Name created Lucifer. And Karovel, and the universe," I replied, but I knew that didn't really answer their question.

"You love the Name, but do you really believe He loves you?"

I didn't dare try to answer that.

As I walked away from the voices, I began to see forms, darkness moving on darkness. "What are you?" I asked them.

"The souls of men," one of them said, in a voice I had never heard before. "The true meaning of the universe."

I looked down at my perfect, sexless self and moved the wings on my back.

"We are not as lovely as you, and we do not do the sterile dance of the Silver City. The Name created us, but we dwell here until we are born."

"What is 'born'?" I asked.

"Follow me," said one. "See my future."

I objected at first. "Is the universe even finished?"

"What does time mean here?" the soul laughed.

"What is your future?" I asked.

"I am a mother," the soul said, though I was not certain what that meant either.

The next thing I saw was a woman-- I understood the word better now-- giving birth. That is how I learned what being born means. It involved pain and blood, both of which I already knew from Carasel's death. It also involved tears, and joy. A mother was a creator, I knew now. The woman held her baby in trembling arms and gave him a name. I had never seen anything named before. She was not as beautiful to look at as an angel, nor was her child, but that didn't matter.

Her home was small and cold, and three other children slept in the other of its rooms. That night she sat with her screaming infant, another soul, trying to comfort him and giving him her milk. She never slept.

When I recovered from my vision, I spoke to her. "You will have compassion for your children, and I don't know if even the Name can say that."

"The Name is the creator of both me and my children," she replied, as if she had no doubt of His compassion when I, an angel, did.

The next soul I saw was a warrior, one who brings death and destruction to his enemies. I had no hatred for his enemies, as they were souls created by the Name just as he was, but I watched him without anger.

The wars of Earth were not like the beautiful phalanx of angels I had seen in the skies of the Silver City. They were an ugly thing: filth and terror and twisted bodies. I hoped to never see such sights again. Yet when the soldier I was watching came upon a wounded enemy, he captured him rather than kill him in cold blood.

I watched as he walked with the bound foe toward his own troops, both of them stumbling along, both bleeding. At one point they stopped, and he put his canteen of water to the enemy's lips so he could drink. Then he steadied him, and they kept going.

Having seen all this, I spoke to him. "You will be merciful to your enemies, and I do not know if even the Name can say that."

"The Name created mercy," he said gently.

Another called out to me. "Will you watch over me next?"

"I am no guardian angel," I replied.

"I am a poet," the third soul told me.

I asked him no questions, because I knew what a poem was merely from living the poetry of my city. Now I watched over his soul as he wrote, spinning truth and lies at once. He stayed up all night when I saw him, putting the world into ink and song, something to leave behind when his soul left the earth once more. His home was small and poor as well, though he barely noticed his surroundings.

Drinking from a flask, he wrote, crossed out his lines, and wrote again, not even stopping to eat all night. He was a little mad, and very much a creator, my poet.

"You will love and watch over your creation, and I do not even know if the Name can say that," I told him.

"The Name created all things with a word," the poet reminded me.

When I wanted to go home, I looked for the Silver City, but I could not see it through the darkness. I pushed my way through the souls of men, but still only became more lost. Was I going to be like Karovel, never to return? Was this my punishment for listening to the voices, or for listening to the souls of men?

After my fruitless search for the city I closed my eyes, and then I found out what a dream is. I saw Zephkiel, in his office.

"Where have you been?" He asked me, as if He did not know.

"I lost myself in the future of men," I answered.

"And what did you learn?"

"That justice must be tempered with mercy, and punishment with compassion," I said.

"And?"

"That love stands above all."

"And do you think that I do not believe that?" he asked.

"The voices in the darkness told me You did not, but I do not trust them. But Lucifer, he did."

"As is My plan," the Name said. "He will learn that men, not angels, are the pinnacle of creation, and he will try to turn them against Me. But men will earn my mercy, as will Karovel, and Lucifer himself in the end."

"Karovel will always seek the Silver City, I think. But Lucifer will never come back here to You, to hear Your forgiveness."

"Then I will go to him."

I extended my wings then, and they parted from my shoulders. "You will need these," I told the Name, and I left them in front of Him as an offering. He smiled, and it was the most beautiful and compassionate thing I have ever seen.

When I awoke from my dream I had no wings, and I had to teach myself to walk in the darkness. The memories of the place I sought no longer seemed as beautiful to me as the lives I had watched, and I knew I could never return. I awaited the finished universe where I could live among men, and eventually I forgot the way back to the heavens.

So, does this story lie still on the page for you, because you cannot hear my voice, or do the words dance through your mind as if I had spoken them? Am I a worthy creator, though it was never my purpose? Did you learn a lesson from me, or laugh at me? Perhaps you will tell my words over and your listeners will tell them too, until the tale of the Vengeance of the Name is created again, and becomes something completely different.


End file.
